Mary, Queen of Scots Read Online Free Page B

emotional and conscience-stricken halfway through and there are unnecessary repetitions. One of these letters was almost certainly a report written by Mary to Moray, Maitland or Bothwell on her interview with Darnley, and the other either a more personal letter to Bothwell—which would be most damning—or a complete forgery. There is no greeting, of course, but Moray’s Journal 13 states that at this time Mary was writing letters to Bothwell; and Paris, in his second deposition, claimed that he delivered this letter to Bothwell and carried back an answer the next day, which cannot have reached her before she left Glasgow. Casket Letter II cannot have been written in its entirety to Maitland or Moray because in it they are referred to in the third person. The 3,132-word letter is here quoted at length because of its crucial importance, and the abridged text is as follows: 14
    Being gone from the place where I had left my heart, it may be easily judged what my countenance was, considering what the body [is] without [the] heart, which was cause that till dinner I had used little talk, neither would anybody venture [to] advance himself thereunto, thinking that it was not good so to do.
    There follows the passage recounting Mary’s exchange with Crawford and other events relating to her arrival in Glasgow. She adds:
    Not one of the town is come to speak with me, which maketh me to think that they be his [Lennox’s], and they so speaketh well of them [the Lennoxes], at least his son.
    The King sent for Joachim [Paris] and asked him why I did not lodge nigh to him, and that he would rise sooner, and why I came, whether it were for any good appointment that he came, and whether I had not taken Paris and Gilbert to write, and that I sent Joseph [Lutini]. I wonder who hath told him so much, even of the [coming] marriage of Bastien [Pagez]. This bearer shall tell you more upon that.
    This suggests that Darnley had at least one spy at court, and it has been argued that this was Sir James Balfour, which is quite possible. The reference to Bastien’s wedding has been seen as sinister, for it was on the night after that wedding that Darnley was murdered. The implication is perhaps that Mary feared Darnley might find out what she and Bothwell had planned for that night, but that is improbable, for at this time the intention was to take him to Craigmillar, not Kirk o’Field, and it is clear that the gunpowder plot was not decided upon until after Darnley had gone to Kirk o’Field. An alternative theory is that Darnley was hoping to use Bastien’s wedding as cover for his own treacherous plans, but he could not, at this stage, have predicted Mary’s movements on that day. Mary’s reference to the wedding is therefore probably innocuous, and merely illustrates her concern that Darnley was so well informed.
    The next section of the letter reports the conversation that Crawford recorded, and it will be seen that the two passages have great similarity, although the account in Casket Letter II is more detailed in parts.
    I asked him [Darnley] of his letters and where he did complain of the cruelty of some of them. He said that he did dream, and that he was so glad to see me that he thought he should die; indeed, that he has found fault with me that I was pensive. 15
    I went my way to sup. He [Darnley] prayed me to come again, which I did, and he told me his grief, and that he would make no testament but leave all unto me, and that I was the cause of his sickness for the sorrow he had, that I was so strange unto him. “And [said he] you asked what I meant in my letter to speak of cruelty. It was of your cruelty, who will not accept my offers and repentance. I avow that I have done amiss, but not that [which] I have also always disavowed, and so have many other of your subjects done, and you have well pardoned them. I am young. You will say that you have also pardoned me in my time and that I return to my fault. May not a man of my age,